Living Planet Symposium Extra News: Day 2
ESA’s week-long Living Planet Symposium is in full swing in Vienna, Austria, drawing scientists and researchers from around the world. This flagship event focuses on the latest breakthroughs in Earth science and highlights the advanced space technologies used to observe and understand our changing planet. Throughout the week, we’ll be covering the bigger stories in depth, but we’re also sharing some daily snapshots of other significant happenings.
The major highlight of today was the signing of a landmark agreement between ESA and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
ESA and the Convention on Wetlands strengthen ties
In a significant step forward for global environmental stewardship, ESA and the Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands have formalised their long-standing partnership by signing a Memorandum of Intent.
This strategic agreement outlines bold, actionable areas of collaboration that harness the unique strengths of both organisations to advance shared objectives in environmental conservation and sustainable development.
Wetlands are vital to life on Earth. Among the planet’s most productive ecosystems, they are biodiversity hotspots – providing essential habitat for countless species of plants and animals. They are also crucial to human wellbeing, offering freshwater, food and natural materials, while regulating floods, recharging groundwater and playing a key role in mitigating climate change.
Despite their importance, wetlands are still disappearing at an alarming rate across much of the globe.
For over 20 years, ESA and the Convention on Wetlands have worked closely and informally, united by a deep commitment to halting this decline and ensuring the sustainable use of wetlands. ESA has served as an accredited observer at the Convention’s Conferences of the Parties and actively contributes to the Ramsar Scientific and Technical Review Panel.
With this new Memorandum, the collaboration enters a new era – one that leverages cutting-edge Earth observation technology and international policy expertise to strengthen wetland monitoring, inform decision-making and support global conservation efforts.
This agreement marks not just a formalisation of past efforts, but a renewed promise: to protect and preserve the world’s wetlands for the benefit of nature, climate and future generations.
ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Cheli, said, “We are proud to formalise our longstanding collaboration with the Convention on Wetlands through this Memorandum of Intent. Earth observation offers powerful tools to help reverse wetland loss – providing consistent, high-quality, and scalable data for wetland inventory, monitoring, assessment, and restoration.
“We look forward to deepening our cooperation to support national wetland inventories, enhance monitoring of Wetlands of International Importance, advance restoration efforts, and jointly develop training and capacity-building initiatives that empower countries to better protect these vital ecosystems.”
Dr Musonda Mumba, Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands, added, “This partnership with ESA goes beyond adding Earth observation data to our approach – it transforms how we collaborate with countries to map, understand and protect wetlands. By integrating this technology, we gain the precision needed to move past general assumptions, offering actionable, real-time information that supports smarter decisions in wetland management.”
Under the new agreement, ESA and the Convention on Wetlands will align and strengthen their respective programmes related to wetland inventory, monitoring and conservation. A key focus will be empowering countries with the tools and capacity to use satellite data operationally – supporting better decision-making and long-term sustainability.
The collaboration will also prioritise the integration of multiple data sources, including satellite, in-situ, and model-based data – ensuring transparency, quality assurance and scientific integrity across all activities.
The aim is to ensure that Earth observation-based tools, methods, and indicators are interoperable and transferable, so they can be applied consistently across different regions and wetland types. ESA will provide its data, tools and technical expertise to assist in developing and updating national wetland inventories, including through mechanisms under the Convention on Wetlands and its Scientific and Technical Review Panel.
Efforts will also focus on expanding access to datasets and tools, particularly for countries that face resource or data constraints.
Another important element of the partnership is the development of new data products to support the conservation and effective management of Wetlands of International Importance (also known as ‘Ramsar sites’). This includes the creation of indicators to monitor ecological conditions and management effectiveness, as well as identifying high-priority wetlands for potential designation under the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.
The agreement also highlights the role of EO in supporting wetland restoration, particularly for ecosystems critical to climate mitigation and adaptation, by helping prioritise restoration areas, measure ecological and societal benefits, and track project success over time.
Together, ESA and the Convention on Wetlands will contribute to the development of Essential Wetland Variables that can inform national reporting under the Convention, as well as international frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Together with other international partners, they will contribute to the renewed GEO Wetlands Initiative, which will promote the use of Earth observation in wetland science and policy – facilitating global data access, enabling the sharing of in-situ data for validation, and providing countries with technical guidance and support.
By combining ESA’s technical capabilities with the Convention’s policy expertise and global network, this collaboration promises to strengthen the science-policy interface needed to safeguard the world’s wetlands – ecosystems that are essential for biodiversity, climate resilience, and human wellbeing.
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